Subject: FYI4 Feedback

From: Burke Chris-CCB007 <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1998 03:04:20 -0600

Happy New Year all! I'm Christopher Burke, a new USWG subscriber working at
Motorola's Internet and Networking Group in Seattle, WA.

At the USWG session during the 43rd IETF, I volunteered to April that I
would add a glossary to FYI4. I believe it uses many terms that a new user
would not understand. What is a "network" anyway? What are "normal telephone
communication products"? After more discussion with April and with other
attendees, I agree with their original assessment that a glossary isn't the
right way to go - instead, I think we should clarify the language of FYI4 in
places where it might be difficult for a new user to understand. I'll post a
separate message with suggested clarifications.

I found some existing work out on the WWW that may help make FYI4 better.
There's a lovely new-user introduction to the internet at
http://www.learnthenet.com/english/index.html, and survey results on who is
using the net (40%-60% are new users), and what they want to do with it, at
http://acnielsen.com/acn/press/unitedki/960514c.htm (for Hong Kong) and at
http://sellitontheweb.com/ezine/news0181.shtml (for U.S.).

According to the Nielsen site most users (and therefore, probably, most new
users) in Hong Kong are high-income, university education, male, age 20-29;
57% of them have been using the Internet less than 6 months. In the U.S.,
44% of users surveyed have been using the Internet for less than a year, and
the most popular activities are (in order): e-mail, reading on-line
publications, downloading software, e-commerce; electronic gaming - one of
my favorites, I recently spent 7 hours on-line playing the cyberspace
equivalent of paintball - was mentioned as a rapidly growing category.

I like FYI4 a lot, and think it could be revised to better match these
end-user demographics. Maybe Ed, Ray, or Amy could comment...What is the
target audience of FYI4? What information do we want to convey to them?
Where did the questions in FYI4 (e.g. "Who runs the Internet?") come from?

The internet FAQ on the "learnthenet" site lists the following categories of
questions as most commonly asked: The Web, Hardware, Software, E-Mail, Web
Addresses, Finding Information, Safe Surfing. Under "The Web", the first FAQ
is "How do I access a web site I've read about?" - a great question, stated
as a newbie would probably ask it! Under E-Mail, one of the FAQs is, "How
can I get off an e-mail list?". You can check out some of the other
questions in their FAQ yourself.

The "learnthenet" site (why does my brain keep parsing this as "leathernet"
- late-night dyslexia, I guess...) also includes some speculation as to the
future of the Internet (which could be helpful in the proposed new USWG work
in this area). More on this in another post.

Regards,

Chris Burke
P.S. I'll be on holiday December 31 - January 8 and won't be able to read or
reply to e-mail during that time.